| dc.description.abstract | The impact of industrialization and anthropogenic activities on the heavy metal accumulation in a moderately polluted Ulhas estuary, Mumbai is presented here.The estuarine pollution was evaluated based on the enrichment factor of heavy metals in four sediment cores collected between the river embayment and upstream locations.The results showed that the concentrations of Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Hg in the top 20 cm of the three downstream cores (Core 1, 2, 3) were very low, whereas core 4 collected in the upstream location showed moderate enrichment of all the metals.Most of the metals seem to have a common source such as effluents discharged from various anthropogenic activities.Statistical analyses showed that the metals in the first three cores have significant correlations with other metals as well as with organic carbon, clay, silt, or, sand.However, the fourth core was different, as it showed no correlation with sand, silt, clay, or organic carbon, as the only significant correlation was among metals.It can be therefore concluded that the first 3 cores collected from the coast to the mid-estuary exhibited normal distribution of metals owing to their geochemical normalization.However, S4 (core 4) located upstream showing moderate contamination of heavy metals seems to be a hotspot, as it is very close to the industrial discharge point.The continuous discharge of effluents fails to normalize the metals geochemically and instead, favours increased precipitation of metals as complexes, which may easily become bioavailable | |
